Six honored for patriotic essays
While our nation is bombarded by the grim realities of war, local students had a chance to communicate what patriotism and freedom mean to them.
Six local students were honored last week at the VFW Post Home after their essays placed highly in local and district competitions.
Mary Beth Gribble and Blair Foster were the local high school students recognized for their Voice of Democracy essays which discussed the obligations which accompany freedom. They competed against entries from the other 12 VFW posts in the 5th District.
On the middle school level, eighth-graders Shea Hyatt, Jessica Slusher, Jonathan Roberts and April Pemerton were honored for essays which they wrote entitled “My Pledge to America.” The four were selected from 85 total entries which were judged by Southern Standard reporters Amy Satterwhite and Will Stewart.
“I looked over all of them and there were some really good essays,” said VFW Ladies Auxiliary president Diane Wisniewski. “I wouldn’t have wanted to pick a winner from the ones I saw.”
Roberts was declared the overall winner, while Slusher (Irving College), Hyatt (Centertown) and Pemerton (Morrison) were judged to have the best entries from their particular schools.
In Roberts’ winning essay he says, “Despite more than two centuries of moral and material progress, despite our efforts to achieve a more perfect union, there are still Americans who are not sharing in the American dream ? So today, we gather to pledge that the dream must no longer be deferred and it will never, as long as we can do anything about it, become a dream denied. That is why we are here.”
Wisniewski was impressed with the entries she received but was also hopeful the numbers would have been higher.
“Last year we had 150 entries after 9-11 but that’s when everybody was real patriotic,” she said. “I hope people can be patriotic without something like that having to happen.”